It is best, especially while healing, to eat softer or sweeter-tasting
snacks. They are more relaxing, pick up your energy, and keep you
from craving strong sweets, excess beverages, and large volumes of
food. Please use baked, hard or puffed snacks in moderation (one or
two handfuls of popcom, two or three rice cakes can be eaten, once
or twice a week), health permitting . Try not to let snacks interfere
with your regular meals.

CHESTNUT PURÉE

Soak dried chestnuts. Pressure cook or boil the chestnuts with a pinch
of sea salt or small piece of kombu. Then purrée in a hand
food mill.

CHICKPEA SPREAD

Soak dried chickpeas and pressure cook them. Then purée in
a hand food mill with a bit of fresh grated onion and a dash of umeboshi
vinegar or shoyu/soy sauce.

CORN

Boil or steam in the husk and eat off the cob. Enjoy plain or with
puréed umeboshi.

Cook millet and sweet winter squash together, press into a cake pan
and cool. Slice into squares and serve.

MOCHI

- Lightly steam or dry pan-roast, serve with a few tablespoons of
fresh grated daikon and a drop of shoyu/soy sauce.
- Dry pan-roast and serve with a few tablespoons of sweet vegetable
jam (such as squash butter or onion butter).
- Slice mochi and roll in a large leaf of Chinese cabbage. Steam for
3-4 minutes.

NOODLES

- With broth: Cook, rinse, and serve in a mild kombu-shiitake-shoyu/soy
sauce broth.
- Chilled: Cook, rinse, and chill on ice or in the refrigerator, and
serve with a cool broth or dipping sauces.
- Sushi: Cook, rinse, and roll with vegetables in nori.

OHAGI

Cook sweet rice and pound in a suribachi, roll into balls and stuff
with sweet vegetable jam or chestnut purée, then roll in toasted
seeds.

POPCORN

Heat a small handful of oil-free popcorn (no salt or butter) in a
very hot, dry skillet, with a tight-fitting lid. Shake constantly
over a high flame until nearly all kernels are popped.

- CREAMY DRESSING: Lightly boil or steam tofu, purée in a hand
food mill, and mash in a suribachi with puréed umeboshi, fresh
grated onion, or scallion.
- COLD TOFU: Lightly boil or steam tofu slices. Chill on ice or in
the refridgerator, and serve marinated in vinegar or with a cool dipping
sauce made from kombu, shiitake, ginger, and cooked shoyu/soy sauce.